urse!' said Andy.

'Did he tell you about finding a lost child and the fairy with it?'

'Yes,' said Andy; 'I told him all about that.'

'And the fairy was just going to take the child away when Andy found it,
and when the fairy saw Andy she flew away.'

'Yes,' I said; 'that's what Andy told me.'

'And what did you say the fairy was like, Andy?' asked Mrs Head, fixing
her eyes on his face.

'Like. It was like one of them angels you see in Bible pictures, Mrs
Head,' said Andy promptly, sitting bolt upright, and keeping his big
innocent grey eyes fixed on hers lest she might think he was telling
lies. 'It was just like the angel in that Christ-in-the-stable picture
we had at home on the station--the right-hand one in blue.'

She smiled. You couldn't call it an idiotic smile, nor the foolish
smile you see sometimes in melancholy mad people. It was more of a happy
childish smile.

'I was so foolish at first, and gave poor Walter and the doctors a lot
of trouble,' she said. 'Of course it never struck me, until afterwards,
that the fairies had taken the children.'

She pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands to her forehead, and
sat so for a while; then she roused herself again--

'But what am I thinking about? I haven't started to tell you about the
children at all yet. Auntie! bring the children's portraits, will you,
please? You'll find them on my dressing-table.'

The old woman seemed to hesitate.

'Go on, Auntie, and do what I ask you,' said Mrs Head. 'Don't be
foolish. You know I'm all right now.'

'You mustn't take any notice of Auntie, Mr Ellis,' she said with a
smile, while the old woman's back was turned. 'Poor old body, she's a
bit crotchety at times, as old women are. She doesn't like me to get
talking about the children. She's got an idea that if I do I'll start
talking nonsense, as I used to do the first year after the children were
lost. I was very foolish then, wasn't I, Walter?'

'You were, Maggie,' said the Boss. 'But that's all past. You mustn't
think of that time any more.'

'You see,' said Mrs Head, in explanation to me, 'at first nothing would
drive it out of my head that the children had wandered about until they
perished of hunger and thirst in the Bush. As if the Bush Fairies would
let them do that.'

'You were very foolish, Maggie,' said the Boss; 'but don't think about
that.'

The old woman brought the portraits, a little boy and a little girl:
they must have been very pre